27 June 2010

Governor Papers Please has apparently decided that her state's immigration problems aren't inducing the proper level of panic among her constituency, both locally, and those whom she's pandering to in the national news. After what could charitably be called a minimal amount of thought, she's hit upon a novel solution: simply make shit up:

"Well, we all know that the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now becoming drug mules," (Governor Jan) Brewer said. "They're coming across our borders in huge numbers. The drug cartels have taken control of the immigration.

"So they are criminals. They're breaking the law when they are trespassing and they're criminals when they pack the marijuana and the drugs on their backs."

Now, I don't claim to be an expert on lying as a politician, but it seems to me there are probably a few guidelines to follow. Near the top of the list: when selecting the basis for your fabrication, don't pick a scenario that has an entire government agency dedicated to dealing with it. Agencies like those tend to have employees who just might take issue with your attempt to make them look like they're doing an already nearly impossible task even more poorly:

T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council told CNN that Brewer's claims were "clearly not the case." Bonner said that some undocumented immigrants caught by border patrol agents have drugs on them, and that they sometimes blame pressure from the drug cartels.

But, he said, those claims have little credibility because drug smugglers are typically transporting much larger quantities of drugs. And besides, he said, if what Brewer said were true, there would be many more prosecutions for drug smuggling.

But, in the grand scheme of things, if Iraqi WMD, death panels, and the president being a commu-islamo-socialist sleeper agent didn't "comport with reality" why start being straight about the brown people you're using to terrify the electorate?